Questions regarding voting?

* You don't need to vote for your own game. If you did, don't fret, I'll just remove your vote.
* All votes, whether by dev or public is logged with IP. Please don't spread misinformation.
* It may seem that you can vote for a game more than once, but multi votes is in fact not saved. Ideally the voting script should say, 'Hey you voted twice, naughty naughty.' So I'm not completely satisfied with the system. But it was paid for in '03 so I'd like to get our ROI on it.
* Voting data is provided once the contest voting is finished. I've exported it in the last two uDG contests. I think you'll find them in this forum if you search. I would like four volunteers as I had in the past to independently verify the results. Any takers (non competing dev of course)?
* As with the past contest, I'll also provide the developers with their game's reviews. You'll get the public and peer reviews. I will even try to post the best ones to the main site.

I hope that clears things up. As I said, please be carefull about putting out disinformation, as it makes new developers to our community nervous and suicidal. Please also understand that voting at various levels is never a perfect event (i.e. Florida). There also sometimes has to be some balance betweeen making a system so air tight vs a system that won't put off people from voting.

Anyhow, thinking of the positives...
* We had a uDG after many years without one. Once I was convinced to run it by you all, it pretty much happened quickly compared to the typical months it takes.
* We were able to have a stable system to take in the entries and display them. Sites pretty good IMHO. I'd like to keep tweaking it and making it better.
* We were able to get a great number of sponsors with some very nice prizes. 'Selling' the contest isn't an easy role... especially considering the economy.
* We will have nice code for the community. And before you hit REPLY, I'll be uploading 01-04 code.
* We will have 2008 developers succeed in their craft and go on to make better games. I expect to see them making an impact as past entrants have made in Mac gaming.
* We didn't start voting or some other part of the contest and see the server or system blow up. (Don't tell Mr. Murphy I said that.)
* We haven't had an editor completely burnt out at the end of the contest for once. For the most part, it's been a pleasure -- very different from the heavy stress of past contests.

OK, so let's focus on the positive and give a round of applause to the developers who made it to the end of the contest, while encouraging those that didn't to keep at it, and those that may consider someone entering to jump right in. Overall, I'm very confident as with every year, that the games that should end up in the winner's circle will end up there.

So I've finally just looked at the much belated voting system and I think this sums up my thoughts:

I apologize in advance, but this was the proverbial straw that has completely broken my spirit.

Carlos Camacho Wrote:* You don't need to vote for your own game. If you did, don't fret, I'll just remove your vote.

Don't need to? Shouldn't be allowed to...

Quote:* All votes, whether by dev or public is logged with IP. Please don't spread misinformation.
* It may seem that you can vote for a game more than once, but multi votes is in fact not saved.

IP only is a weak weak weak weak system. A simple "don't allow duplicates" prevents some people from actually voting at all, and lets other vote as many times as they want.

Not to mention anyone with the URL can go and vote in the developer categories...

Are you going to go in and grab the IPs of every developer and purge any others? That's going to be an absolute nightmare with most people using dynamic IPs and voting for different games at different times.

Quote:I'm not completely satisfied with the system. But it was paid for in '03 so I'd like to get our ROI on it.

You paid for it?

2003? The html looks like it's from 1993.

Quote:Sites pretty good IMHO. I'd like to keep tweaking it and making it better.

Someone's gotta say it: The site is a total flop. I don't care to go into the enumerating everything that's wrong with it, but the major things are the organization being wonky (particularly with a separate "gallery" rather than putting the screenshots on the actual entry pages), and there also being two different systems and two completely different apperances of two major halves of the site (and that doesn't even include the voting which is an entirely different appearance). Not to mention logging into the admin backend and promising not to touch certain fields in order to update your own entry...

And to think that all of these systems were paid for... that's mind boggling.

Nearly the entire website is a total loss IMO.

Quote:* We were able to get a great number of sponsors with some very nice prizes. 'Selling' the contest isn't an easy role... especially considering the economy.

I was suprised at some of the support we got, considering the state of everything. iDevGames.com is STILL a ghost town - http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15058 , and uDevGames at the start of the contest was pretty haphazzardly organized and incomplete.

Quote:* We haven't had an editor completely burnt out at the end of the contest for once. For the most part, it's been a pleasure -- very different from the heavy stress of past contests.

It's been stressing the crap out of me.

Not even having a voting system up by the time voting was supposed to start?? There were three months to do that. I spent about three hours the-day-of and came up with a pretty slick system, but instead we're using this... mess.

Quote:OK, so let's focus on the positive and give a round of applause to the developers who made it to the end of the contest, while encouraging those that didn't to keep at it, and those that may consider someone entering to jump right in.

Absolutely. I'm just afraid that the systems setup for the website and voting, the execution of the rules, and trying to revive the prestige of the contest was a flop.

When uDG '08 looked like it was going to happen (you said you wanted to do one http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15516 ) I tried to step up and help. I gathered sponsors contact info, I hearded cats over 5 days and crafted rules, I offered to write and even host the website to save money, I even offered to host some of binaries so entrants wouldn't be bombarded by traffic loads during voting and the public wouldn't have to go through any hassle on "free downloads hosting sites" (there were also other community members willing to share bandwidth and donate to any costs), and I even wrote a voting system at the last minute just voting could actually start on time, but every single one of my offers (OUR offers, actually, as there were others) was turned down, and I have to say the result is .

I'm glad the contest happened, and I sincerely appreciate the effort you put into it, but from my perspective I think almost every single thing about this contest could have been done better, and I don't think any amout of "tweaking" is going to help solve fundamental problems.

* It is great that the contest is running again
* There are issues with how the contest is run & managed
* uDG is getting press coverage, and new people will be coming to the site
* Why don't we keep the bickering (well-intentioned though it may be - people are only upset because they do care about the site) off the forum for now, and conduct a proper post-mortem of the contest later?
* In any case, I'm sure Carlos is too busy right now to reply to these points that have been raised, so I'm not sure we are achieving much?

Why not relax and enjoy some of the entries - I'm really impressed with the quality so far.

Zwilnik Wrote:It's a friendly competition between peers. Pretty much everyone who enters a uDevGames competition becomes a winner by the fact that they've completed a game and past history shows that anyone who's done a uDev and realises they like writing games goes on and does it bigger and better from then on.

There's no need for arguments over voting, organisation or anything. Enjoy the games, vote for the ones you like and if you're an entrant, feel really good about doing something creative and enjoy the chance to participate in a friendly competition. Once you're out there in the big bad games developing world it gets a lot nastier, so this is your last chance for gentlemanly conduct

I agree, I mean people compete in udg for the fun, the learning, the spirit of sharing, the challenge, not for the money. Of course the prizes are a nice plus but honestly you could be making much more working at MacDonald's, selling your game shareware etc.